Martina is dedicated to becoming a documentary photographer and filmmaker. With her deep curiosity for this world, she loves observing the environment in silence, documenting as the present is evolving. In her story, we learn how her passion for visual creation over the past 10 years evolved, and what is important to her when creating visuals of nature and animals as a future documentarian.
I found myself, as a little girl, spending long days walking on long semi-deserted beaches, climbing on rocks in search of shells, or doing my first snorkel always with my mother, waiting together for my dad to return from work. We regularly traveled for his job, usually to places surrounded by nature, like the years we went often to North Cyprus (Turkish part) which at that time was not yet very touristy, and still in conflict with the Greek part. In those contexts, I didn’t have many options to play with other children, so I made friends with all other living beings local to the places.
For me they were little adventures, I have always carried them and kept them within me with affection. And all of these adventures characterize me and contributed to who I am today. The love of travel and healthy adventure, empathy for animals, appreciation of nature, and resourcefulness were born this way, thanks to my family. I see it as a gift transmitted and cultivated by my mother.
As I grew a little older and made it to high school, I became extremely fascinated by visual arts. So once I graduated, my subsequent studies have always followed this direction. Art, communication, design. During my academic years, I had some exams in Advertising Photography theory and related communication strategies. I believe it was in that period (2008/2009) that I began to approach the photographic world, albeit at first only in a theoretical and critical manner.
Slowly, over the years, I began to deepen my interest in photography. I attended several courses to try to improve my shots, also facilitated by the fact that at home, thanks to my brother, I already had a great piece of equipment to start with. My over ten-year relationship with photography is perfectly comparable to a love story, a relationship with all its natural phases. It slowly it ignited and it underwent several crises while it developed into something serious, with at times abrupt separations. Not always a peaceful relationship but nevertheless, it has persisted over the years. I have always returned to it and it is slowly more and more of a protagonist in my life.
I never thought about being able to work and live on photography. I have always had a realistic approach to it; honestly, it’s a tortuous road and it is very difficult to create one’s own real stability. However, I did have the wish to make it, somewhere in my subconscious or in the back of my “dream drawer”. Mostly in 2022, with the growth of social networks, this wish came more to the foreground, pushed by some unexpected global circumstances.
I work in the world of tourism; I have been welcoming guests in non-hotel accommodation facilities since 2014. For me, it is a bit like me traveling, meeting people from anywhere in the world, even when they are in my city. Then Covid appeared, and everything stopped. Tourism more than anything else. I’m not someone who likes to relax too much, time is precious – it is among the most precious things we have. Thus, I decided to look at all my other interests and took out of the dream drawer this wish to work with photography. I still work in tourism, but this dream of photography has taken a bigger place in my daily life as an idea for the future.
First, I needed to create a little more substance and a solid foundation for those dreams; I needed to study. Again. Among the many thoughts and ideas that danced in my head, and going through the imaginations and dreams I had as a child, there was being a nature documentarian. Every time I watched a documentary by Piero Angela or National Geographic, I sat with eyes wide open in front of the television, and exclaimed: “Me too! I don’t know how to do it, but one day I too want to do what they do, with animals!”. The enthusiasm was still as alive as when I was a child, and since Covid provided me with lots of time, I took this opportunity to enroll in online courses in Documentarism and Videomaking at the Travel Film School.
It seemed to me that I was taking a first step towards connecting a whole lot of scattered dots in my life: my interest and involvement in travel, sport and outdoor activities, photography, visual arts, and the desire to “Document”. A path certainly uphill and still in progress, not without obstacles and difficulties, but which certainly encompasses all that I am passionate about where for more than a year now I have been trying to invest a lot, if not all, the energies. Trying to improve, practice, and learn every day, patiently and consistently, step by step, falling and getting up, so that this dream can one day come true, in one way or another.
“If you know Nature, you love it, if you love it, you respect it”. In January (2022), I found myself hiking in Abruzzo with the hope to take home some good nature shots of the local flora and fauna when at a certain point, we found some foxes, all hanging out by the side of the main road. With a more careful eye, I stopped to observe them for a while and soon realized that they were the ones who got in the way, most of the time, hoping the cars would stop. And if they did but didn’t give food, they went back to the side of the road, disappointed and waiting for the next car to pass by. I had never seen anything like it in my life.
The local guide who accompanied me then explained to me in more detail what I just witnessed: For years now, the foxes have poured into the street hoping to find food of anthropogenic nature. An unnatural learned habit, arisen due to Man. The foxes found themselves adopting attitudes that go against their natural survival instinct, sometimes passing these bad habits to their offspring, getting extremely close to human beings which they had feared for centuries as they were hunted and now instead, they approach brazenly almost without fear.
It was at that moment that “Volpi Autostoppiste” was born, my first short documentary. I created my YouTube channel at that time, to share it. The documentary highlights how much our actions influence nature and animals, and what repercussions it has. The photographic reportage can be found on my website as well.
Everything I observe, I try to study. Learning is the main theme of my Photography/Video, in the truest and most sincere manner possible. I try to stay faithful to the Classic Documentaries, like those of the past.
Besides video documentaries, I also have several photographic projects planned, they are still in progress, but all united by the same principle: Transmit the beauty and precariousness of what surrounds us, hoping this will entice an observer to delve deeper into some topics, become aware of the reality and that in turn can trigger new values of respect, curiosity, and caring for our precious environment.
Staying and observing the animals with the intention of capturing them in their habitat and/or document some of their habits, as a silent observer, hidden, in respect, and in contact with Nature, it is therapeutic for me. Even if it is sometimes demanding and physically tiring. The time flows in a different way, it almost doesn’t exist and it gives me an inexplicable feeling of well-being.
This feeling is irrelevant to the future achievement of realizing my dream of becoming a true documentary filmmaker. That’s how passion is defined in my opinion, something that makes you feel good and you want to continue doing it regardless of everything – regardless of whether you will get recognition, reward, or financial compensation.
Last summer I ran into another situation that caught my attention and since September I’m working on a new video documentary. A personal project, a feature film, which will once again touch these values dear to me. Though in this case, I will touch on the energy issue. Intertwined with the history of my country. As I said, it is a personal project – after all, I’m still at the beginning – but I’m trying to find/study a way so that once finished, it may be distributed through various channels. Every step I take is dictated by how I imagine the Martina that I would like to see in the future. I believe that, besides being self-critical, it’s important to be a dreamer. It’s these two aspects that drive every single action.
I also have four personal guidelines that are the pillars of my work. After hours of analyzing every smallest detail of all the shots that I took during an outing, the selection of the best photographs is based on 1) The allegorical meaning or message/story that lies behind the image. 2) A strong artistic sense of composition, contrasts, and balance. 3) A truly unique moment or a special/engaging action. 4) Truth. Shots that can somehow really tell the situation as it is although not always perfect or aesthetically captivating.
Being able to get photos/videos with all these personal guidelines is practically impossible, at least for me. But I always try to choose the footage that has at least a few of them. Planning for shots including these four guidelines is difficult, and in addition, I am not so much of a planner (except for the steps to achieve my dreams). The first time I went traveling by myself, for example, I took a flight to Japan at the last minute, only knowing where to sleep the first and the last night. Thus, most of my shots happen because of curiosity, patience, and observation in silence and in the present moment. Of course, I decide on the location already knowing what I will be able to potentially find, which animals there are, etc. But I’ll let it be the course of events to guide me, the present.
Sometimes, however, I have to come back a second or third time to a spot because of a shortage of time, or because what I was looking for didn’t happen. But that, in my opinion, occurs whether you plan in detail or don’t plan too much at all. Last June, when I was on the Azores islands, I was really determined to find dolphins and whales to document them in their natural habitat, diving with them… Unfortunately, I was not lucky those days. I will definitely come back, in search of these incredible animals – I recently started a freediving course to increase my chances and be able to hide in their natural habitat.
I think I can say that that’s my shooting style: silent and hidden, camouflaged in nature or among people, observing the present. I also don’t like to add or take away from the original image during post-processing. I just focus on the tonal values and highlights that the shots already have in the RAW image. I love contrasts in general, strong shadows, and bright colors. Often I also look for a certain “tonal drama”, so I often turn on cold tones, in contrast with the vivid and bright colors portrayed in the pictures. Although I aim to keep the documentation style and keep it truthful, I can spend a lot of time fine tuning a photograph as I enjoy working on it. It is a different creative process where you analyze the photograph in-depth, which I love. Every detail is part of an image of the story.
One of my favorite images to date is one that I took during my first spontaneous solo trip in Japan. It’s my favorite because of the emotional attachment, the memory, connected to it. I didn’t have the best moment with Photography at that time; as I mentioned it’s gone up and down over the past years until it finally has gotten some concrete shape and consistency. Anyway, I had a camera and tried to take photographs of the new, fascinating world for me. The culture, the city, the people… I had been walking around the immense city of Tokyo all day. Getting lost between signs, streets, chaos, technology, traditions, and temples. I was exhausted and honestly, even a little lost. So I decided to sit on one bench, in front of what I soon discovered was a mini playground for children. I wanted to regain some strength and just observe everything that passed in front of me, letting time flow, simply.
At a certain point, steam appeared and hovered over the playground. It turned into an incredible moment of pure joy for some children who ran through the steam, not caring about the cold and falling on their knees because of speed and enthusiasm, after which they’d stand up and continue their play. I can’t explain but it was an extremely intimate moment for. Seeing the kids get up after falling and keep playing as if nothing had happened has me left to think a lot. Like I just learned a lesson. What can I say it was a small, indelible moment that was significant for me on that trip I took a few shots, like a silent observer, and hidden, as always.
That is how I hope to create a lot of impactful footage – while living adventures, observing the world in silence, and learning lessons. Documenting to inform everyone else and create evidence of this ever evolving globe.
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